


Sleep, at last

by Im_Fratt_Trash (raysire)



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Frank/Matt - Freeform, Fratt - Freeform, M/M, One Shot, Red Castle, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 00:11:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8868487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raysire/pseuds/Im_Fratt_Trash
Summary: Prompt: Frank has a steady heartbeat. Matt misses it when Frank goes out of town.





	

**Author's Note:**

> *surprise_bitch.gif*
> 
> (Sorry for not writing for so long, guys, I hope to be back on board soon)

Three in the morning. He paces. The rug in the living room is soft under his bare feet, muffling the sound of his steps. He can still hear them, of course. He hears everything, but maybe the neighbours below will not complain about the noise this time.

He hears everything. The pipes in the walls moan every time someone opens a tap somewhere in the building. The vents on the roof click and grind. Sirens out in the streets. A baby is crying two blocks down. He hopes the parents will wake up soon, the poor thing sounds really distressed, it’s not a tantrum.

He hears everything. Dogs barking, the breaths of his neighbours all around him. Almost everyone is sleeping. The old lady two floors below has once again fallen asleep with her TV on. The thousandth rerun of a cheesy soap opera.

His talking alarm informs him that it’s 3.15 am, and he is awake, pacing in the living room.

The noises, the sounds. He is not used to them any more. There was a time when he would only be able to sleep with noise-cancelling headphones on. He needed them to cut off all the noises of the external world. Then Frank came into his life. The first night, he had fallen asleep with his head on Frank’s chest.

He’d woken up the following morning at the sound of his alarm, the recorded voice informing him that it was 7.30 am and he had had the first real, uninterrupted night of sleep in months, maybe years.

Frank’s heartbeat does a better job at silencing the world than his headphones ever did. Frank’s heart beats strong, steady, never changing its rhythm. It’s peaceful. It’s Matt’s favourite lullaby. 

And when Frank is away, God-knows-where doing God-knows-what (though Matt has a few ideas on this), he just cannot sleep any more. His headphones are suddenly not enough. 

It’s the fourth night he spends pacing in his living room, increasingly tired and unable to lie down and close his eyes. He’s tried everything. Sleeping on Frank’s side of the bed, his head under Frank’s pillow, engulfed in his scent. He’s tried to sleep curled up in the living-room armchair as he often did in the first months of their story, when he came home first from their separate nightly activities and he dozed off waiting for Frank to knock on the door. He’s tried herbal teas, meditation, incense. Nothing. He usually falls asleep at the crack of dawn, when his exhausted body finally gives up and his brain manages to shut everything down for a couple of hours. It is never enough. 

But tonight, the crack of dawn is still far away. 3.30 am. He sits on the couch, embraces his legs and rests his chin on his knees, like a child. He closes his eyes for a second, they burn behind his eyelids, tired even though he doesn’t, technically, use them. 

Heavy, familiar footsteps in the hall of the building. Military-issue boots, the clinking of one too many guns. A muttered curse (the light on the stairs doesn’t work), a chuckle. Frank’s voice, barely a whisper, but Frank knows he can hear him: “I’m home, Red.”

A minute passes. Frank’s footsteps stop on the other side of the door. He turns the handle, it’s unlocked. He comes in. Matt is still sitting on the couch, still curled up under a blanket. He raises his head when he hears Frank enter the room, and smiles.

“You’re home.”

Frank doesn’t reply. He sits beside him and hugs him close. He smells like gunpowder and soap. Matt loves this scent. He can feel Frank’s heart beating against his own chest, slow and steady, so familiar that it feels like he is the one coming back home. 

“You look like shit, Red.”  
“Had trouble sleeping.”  
“Let’s fix that.”

He lies down on the couch, pulling Matt with him. Matt’s ear rests exactly above Frank’s heart. He feels Frank place a gentle kiss on the top of his head, and he slips into a blissful, dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the Anon who sent me the prompt!


End file.
